How to fall in love the wrong way
by Craploadsofawesomeness
Summary: This is how it starts. You meet a girl. You think she looks hot. You ask her out on a date. You fall in love. Alternate reality. You see a girl. You ask you friend what her name is. You find out you are part of rival communities. She hates you. You fall in love anyways.
1. Chapter 1

_Antoinette 'Toni' Topaz has one rule: If you fall in love, do it properly. None of this sneaking into rooms at midnight, getting into fistfights over the object of your affections' honor, rescuing her from fires and asshole parents and oldass nuns, and your own goddamn family members._

" _Yeah, well," Fangs pants out, while they are being chased down the highway to their bikes "Should have thought of that before you went and fucked it all up, huh?_

" _To be fair," Sweet Pea replies, on her behalf "It's not totally her girl's fault we're here, is it?"_

" _Thank you, buddy," she calls back at him, ducking as one of the Ghoulies chuck a stone at their heads. It whizzes past her ear "They're throwing rocks," she screams, at her friends._

" _Thanks so much, Toni," Fangs huffs out, and how is he still managing to sound sarcastic in the middle of the most gruelling marathon ever? She turns to see a tiny cut on the side of his neck "We hadn't noticed."_

 _They speed up, and finally reach their bikes, firing them up, and start driving._

 _After a while, wind whooshing past her, she speaks again "Think we lost them."_

" _Yeah."_

 _Another pause._

" _That was..."_

" _Don't you dare say it was fun, Toni!" FF screeches at her, and she and Sweets burst out laughing. It's one in the morning, and her bike is purring along the smooth stretch of road. The air is filled with their laughter, and the sound of the motors. It's cool, and her leather jacket, thick as it may be, still cannot keep the cold out completely._

" _Goddamn Cheryl Blossom," he mutters, and she can hear him._

" _Goddamn Cheryl Blossom indeed," she says quietly, and it takes her back to a tiny path leading to the woods, a canopy of trees, a flash of red, and a perfect morning "Goddamn Cheryl Blossom indeed."_

 **How it started**

This is how it starts.

You meet a girl. You think she looks hot. You ask her out on a date. You fall in love.

Alternate reality.

You see a girl. You ask you friend what her name is. You find out you are part of rival communities. She hates you. You fall in love anyways.

This is how it starts.

Toni sees her in the cafeteria. When she will retell this story to her children (three, four, a lot. She hasn't quite decided how many yet. She just knows it'll be a lot), she will use the words ethereal, and divine, and ange, and they will all cringe. But she will stick with it anyways, because she doesn't know how to describe Cheryl Blossom. Still hasn't learned.

The girl is sitting alone at a table, back straight, nose high in the air, eating her lunch primly. Regal, like a queen without her subjects. Not that she seems to need them anyway. She carefully spoons up her mashed potatoes, puts them in her mouth, and chews slowly, but with purpose. Toni cannot stop staring.

"Hey, Jughead," she asks him, and he turns to her, right arm still slung around Betty's shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Who's that chick?"

He follows her line of sight to the girl, and his face morphs into something best described as alarm "Ah. That's...Cheryl."

"This Cheryl have a last name?"

"Cheryl Blossom," he replies, giving her a look and that name strikes a chord of recognition somewhere."

"Blossom," she mutters "Blossom. Where have I heard that name before?"

She realises it right when FF opens his mouth "Her brother," she whisper-proclaims "That's it, right?"

Jughead nods slowly, going back to eating his fries, and she turns back to the girl again. Now that she knows who she is, it just seems different. She can see an air of melancholy surrounding her, the scent of loneliness in her aura. And yet, yet, it does nothing to her beauty. The girl, Cheryl, still is the most beautiful person in the place.

"Uh oh," Jughead says, like he's just realised something, untangling himself from his girlfriend "Oh no. Toni. No."

She frowns at him "What?"

"No. Absolutely not. I know that look. Fucking hell. You...Cheryl."

"You know what he's on about?" someones asks FF, nad she sees him shake his head no.

"You do not have the hots for Cheryl Blossom," he says, seriously, and she swats him on the arm.

"I...do not. I don't even know her. What the hell, man?"

He frowns at her even more, non-verbally communicating what clearly seems to be a 'Come on'. She matches his stare with a defiant one of her own.

"What's wrong?"

"You really should stay away from her," he tells her "She's...Northside, okay? Age-old rivalry? They hate our guts? Especially her. She's...got stuff"

"I wasn't planning on anything, dude," she reassures him "And I certainly don't have the hots for her. She's just, interesting."

"That!" he exclaims "That is exactly what I am worried about. You finding her interesting. Next..."

"Toni will be following her around, trying to talk to her," Sweet Pea joins in, a mischievous smile on his face.

"Then comes the talking," Fangs continues "The girl hates her, obviously, but our girl here, she persists."

Jughead, utterly bemused, looks on as the two idiots construct their idiotic story "Then, by some miracle, the angel, the girl from heaven, ignores Toni's ugly mug, and manages to fall in love, a la a Romeo and Juliet."

They end up on either side of her during their shenanigans, singing Billy Joel's The longest time and she pinches them both, hard.

"This is ridiculous," she says "I am not going to fall in love with her."

"Say it again," Sweet Pea declares loudly "Say it for glory."

"I, Toni Topaz, vow, never to fall in love with the girl," she laughs "I promise to neither follow her around nor talk to her, or serenade her. Happy?"

Their entire table bursts out in laughter, and she joins in, ignoring the faint twinge of disappointment that crops up in her chest when she realises that while all this was going on, Cheryl had left the cafeteria, and was nowhere to be seen.

 _Farewell, Cafeteria girl_ , she thinks, _our romance was short lived and it ended before it even began. I will probably never see you again._

" _If only," Fangs says, and she laughs again_


	2. Chapter 2

Cheryl Blossom does not like her.

Like, at all.

And Toni gets it. She gets the entire 'Blossoms hating the Serpents' issue, the whole Northside-Southside rivalry, the 'Moon is in Mars so I have a reason to hate you' thing. But it doesn't make Cheryl seem any less of a mystery she wants to discover. She gets called 'Cha Cha' and 'Queen of the Buskers', and all it does is make her wonder more about who the girl wearing about ten invisible layers over herself actually is.

Because no matter how difficult Cheryl seems to be, there are a million other small things she has seen that refuse to let her drop her into the category of 'Evil'. There seem to be a million strings attached to her back, strings that are forcing her to keep standing straight with no reprieve, no break. Toni knows all…this, this pain causing doesn't happen unless there's at least an equal amount of pain suffering happening inside, and that fact alone makes her curious. How does this girl, manage to function with all of that pent up inside?

"Did you, or did you not," Fangs starts one day, when she is obsessing too much over her "Promise to not fall in love with her?"

"I did," she admits "Although I do not see what that has to do with…."

Sweet Pea gives her a look, and she shakes her head in denial, furiously.

"Oh no. This is just, interest. Completely human curiosity and interest and its totally natural, and you both are complete assholes, Goddamn it!"

She ends up chasing both of them all around a classroom, and the discussion has ended, but that doesn't stop her from wondering.

She's in one of the cubicles in the girl's washroom, when she hears Cheryl spill the beans about a kiss that shouldn't have been, and she feels like she has to say something.

Cheryl looks her up and down, spews some spiel about how she is the Queen of the school, how powerful she is….

"I need no reason," she says, voice high and dripping with the classic 'Mean Girls' tone "I simply…am. Feel free to tremble."

And Toni listens to this girl talk, and all she can think about is how sorry she feels for her, to have to carry all that pain all by herself. Which is why she speaks next, instead of just breaking her nose like she would have if it were anybody else.

"I have a better idea," she says, hand reaching up to touch her shoulder "Why don't you tell me what's bothering you, because clearly, you're in a lot of pain."

"Get your Sapphic Serpent hands off my body!" Cheryl throws at her, voice rising in pitch till it is almost a shriek, and storms off.

Well. Could've gone better.

She has plans. Big plans. Most of those include tying Cheryl up and forcing her to talk, but they are good plans, nonetheless.

"You're an idiot," Jughead tells her, in his usual deadpan voice "Like, a really big idiot."

"Thank you, Jug," Sweets says, thumping the Beanie-wearing boy on the back "See? Even Juggie thinks it's stupid, and he's been around for most of the stupid decisions in this town. He speaks from experience!"

"I just, want to talk to her. Is that really so bad?"

"Yeah, because you plan on falling in love with her."

She does not.

Really.

Seriously.

She just wants to get to know the girl with the red hair who carries around more than her bag's weight every day, the girl who lost her twin brother because of her murderous father, and still manages to be a fully functional, albeit a rather assholistic, human being at all times. She wants to get to know the girl behind the fake smile and the angry eyes. And luckily enough, fate gives Toni her chance on a rainy Thursday afternoon after school.

She's driving her bike back to Serpent area, earphones in, listening to some song, when she sees Cheryl walking beside the road. Her steps lack the arrogance she displays while in school, and her head isn't high up as always. Toni pulls up beside her, slowly, and turns off the engine.

"Hey," she says.

Cheryl Bombshell takes one look at her, and irritation blooms on her face "Why can you not leave me alone?"

"Why can you not be nice to me?" she asks, feigning offence.

Cheryl ignores this, and keeps on walking, so she hurriedly gets off her bike and drags it beside her, catches up gradually.

"What?"

"Nothing," she replies "I just feel like you should be nicer to me."

"I don't like you," Cheryl tells her, and Toni isn't fazed in the least.

"That's okay. You don't have to like me. My friends don't like me very much either. They think I'm an asshole, which, I guess is true, but mostly, it's because I keep making lame puns all the time, and, you know what…"

She goes on rambling for another two minutes before she realizes that she's walking alone. She turns back to see Cheryl staring at her curiously.

"What is this?" she asks "Why do you….? Why are you doing this? I don't quite understand…this."

And she genuinely looks curious, like she is wondering who this stupid girl is who's crashed into her life, and is demanding to be friends with her, and it breaks Toni's heart a little inside.

"I want to be your friend," she says, simply.

"I still don't like you," Cheryl says, a reflex response, and Toni smiles.

The best things take time, she thinks, and launches into another story.


	3. Chapter 3

Cheryl Blossom lets Toni rest her hand on top of hers. It's a simple gesture. A symbol of solidarity in the middle of a moment of weakness. She bares her soul, and tells her story, and gives an insight into why she is the way she is, and Toni understands. If her mother had been this much of a monster, she'd probably have lashed out in different ways. Toni thinks they might be friends now.

There is only one problem.

Toni looks at the girl under the red lights of the dark theater lobby, the girl with the wet eyes, and puffy, red cheeks and Toni feels like she might not have been totally accurate when she told her friends that she just wanted to get to know Cheryl, not fall in love with her. She rests her hand on top of hers, and it feels nice in a way that she hasn't felt in a long time. Her skin is very soft, and cool to the touch, and Toni is screwed.

"I knew it!" Fangs exclaims, thumping the top of the table in his excitement "I knew you wanted to have her babies!"

She gags "Have her babies? What are you, crazy?"

Although, just hypothetically, Cheryl Blossom's babies would be pretty cute. And combine that with her own blessed genes, they would probably be amazingly good looking. Smart and beautiful.

(Okay, she really is screwed)

"I never said I wanted to have her babies," she says "I just, might, have a tiny bit of a platonic crush on her."

Fangs and Sweet Pea both give her identical looks of judgment, and she angrily grabs her bag.

"I don't know why I even tell you people anything."

"It's because you love us," they sing in unison, and she walks away, flipping them off in the process.

"I do love them," she admits later, when she is walking home back with Cheryl. Well, walking might be a bit of stretch, as she is basically huffing and puffing her way through dragging her humongous bike on the road "They are…."

"Wait," Cheryl raises her hand to stop her "Are you sure your hands don't hurt? You've been dragging your bike home for the past month."

"Eh," Toni waves it off; playing it cool "I can handle it."

(She can't. She really can't. This…whatever this is, might end up killing her)

"Toni, your arms are swollen," Cheryl tells her, flatly.

"Is that concern I hear from Cheryl Bombshell?" she asks, right eyebrow raised.

"Please," the girl walking beside her rolls her eyes; the movement is so attractive Toni wants to say stupid things forever so she gets to see it again and again. She shakes her head, waving the thought away. _Platonic_ , she tells herself, _completely platonic._

She walks a few more steps before she gives up "Okay, Okay. Can we stop for a while? It's just that, the nature is especially pretty here."

"There are literally two trees here."

"And they are so beautiful," Toni tells her. She parks her bike on its stand, and collapses on the grass "I just want to look at them forever."

"Your eyes are closed," Cheryl points out, but her voice is amused, and Toni hears the rustle of her skirt as she sits down beside her.

"I meant the feeling, Bombshell," she teases "You know when you're around green things; there is grass and trees and you can hear a river gushing nearby, and your eyes are closed but you know the sky is the bluest it has ever been, and there are birds flying around at this very moment. Everything is so soft, the warmth of the sun on your skin, the scratch of the blades of grass on your clothes, and the world, the world for those ten minutes, is all music."

There is silence, so Toni opens her eyes, looks at the girl sitting beside her, and promptly loses her breath. Cheryl is staring at her, and the look on her face is so fond it makes Toni ache in a strange way. She wants to reach her hand out, hold Cheryl's. She wants to touch her cheek, and have her lean into it. She has the sudden, insane urge to get up and kiss her forehead.

Cheryl notices her staring back, and clears her throat awkwardly. The sound breaks through the little bubble of peace that had existed, and now everything seems to go back to being normal.

"I did not know you were a poet, Topaz."

 _And I did not know how close to poetry you are,_ she thinks.

"I guess I just need the right motivation," she replies.

"The right motivation being the two spectacular trees, I assume."

"No, the right motivation being the pretty girl sitting next to you," she says, and revels in the blush that suddenly appears on Cheryl's face.

Things Toni Topaz knows now.

Never, ever make promises you cannot keep.

It is impossible to be around Cheryl and not like her.

Platonic relationships are overrated.

After about a month of being her friend, she can safely say that she most definitely likes Cheryl Blossom.


	4. Chapter 4

Heaven is a place on Earth.

Heaven is a place on Earth named Riverdale.

More specifically, heaven is a street on Riverdale that runs parallel to the Sweetwater river, on which, currently Toni happens to be driving her bike on, with Cheryl Blossom's arms wrapped around her.

Let her state that again for the record: Cheryl Blossom aka Cheryl Bombshell aka The most beautiful girl in the world has her arms around her.

If Toni could think right now (she can't) she would most likely be thanking Betty Cooper for giving her the idea that has her floating on top of the world. It basically all started with something stupid they were discussing as they all sat together in the Whyte Wyrm at night, eating burgers. One of the guys had needed advice on how to get a girl to like him back, and he was being bombarded with the worst ideas ever.

"Dude, you have to serenade her, man!" a guy had called out from somewhere beside her "Sing her an amazing song, something like….."

"Bruno Mars' Just the way you are."

"No, no. It has to be A Thousand Years by Christina Perri."

"Um, no, definitely Can't help falling in love by good old Mister Presley, y'all."

She, Betty and Jughead had given each other amused looks, while Sweet Pea looked on in increasing disgust.

"Seriously?" he'd asked them "Just ask her out, go for dinner at Pop's, if she wants to, then bone."

At her questioning look, he continued "What? Consent is sexy."

She had just thrown her hands up, and smiled.

"Probably, a lunch date in a park?" Fangs asked "Like a picnic or something. I've heard girls like that shit."

"Oh, oh," Betty had suddenly piped up from under Jughead's arm "Take her on a bike ride."

When he'd stared at her inquisitively, she had blushed "What? Guys on bikes are sexy."

And that would have been it, with Toni forgetting all about it, but the next day when she was, as usual, dragging her bike alongside Cheryl, laughing at something the redhead had said, it had suddenly occurred to her.

"Hey," she asked her, stopping the bike suddenly "Have you ever been on a picnic?"

A faraway glint of nostalgia had come in Cheryl's eyes "When I was a kid. Jason and I used to…..well, it used to mostly be his idea. He would suddenly grab my arm, and pull me along to some strange place where we could just play ball or something, and we'd have tiny picnics. It was…..nice."

"How long has it been?"

"Like, about six seven years, at least?"

"Okay," she had replied "Okay."

"What okay?" Cheryl demanded.

"Uh," she had fumbled, because this was a little awkward "Would you, like to go to a picnic right now?"

Cheryl's eyes were wide and incredulous, and okay, maybe an impulsive decision wasn't that good of an idea right now.

"Please?" she'd added.

"How?"

"Well," she had spoken, slowly, softly, trying not to startle the girl in front of her "It would involve you getting up on my bike."

"Well, then, Antoinette. I'm certainly not doing that so let us resume our walk."

"Come on, Cheryl! Where is your spirit of adventure?"

"Um, I don't know? Probably cowering in fear from that giant beast you have?" Cheryl deadpanned, eyebrows raised.

"Nothing would happen to you, I promise. You would be completely, totally safe, it's a Toni Topaz guarantee."

"Well, forgive me, but that doesn't seem like an adequate measure of safety to me."

"Please, Cheryl," Toni had begged then, looking imploringly at Cheryl, trying to get her eyes to look like Betty's when she wanted Jughead to help her with some new project "Don't you trust me?"

And Cheryl Blossom, the most stubborn person in the world, had gone a little red around the neck, and after a minute of staring into her eyes, nodded slightly.

They get off the bike after a fifteen minute ride, and she immediately misses the feel of Cheryl's arms wrapped around her midsection. It's a tiny part of the woods, and the spot Cheryl picks is just underneath a giant spruce tree, not too muddy, not too sunny. Toni sets down the blanket she had stopped her bike in the middle of the journey to get, and carefully places on top of it, all the things she had bought from a shop in the middle of the highway. Cheryl watches her curiously, quiet as she sets down a humongous bag of chips, a bunch of Mars bars, and finally a bottle of Coke. The last item earns her a raised eyebrow from the girl.

"What?" she asks, defensively.

"Expected you to be a Scotch kind of girl, to be honest," Cheryl replies, smiling a little bit.

She ducks her head, makes a show of looking right and left, then leans in, seriously "Okay, don't tell anyone, but I actually don't like alcohol that much. Coke is what gives me my kicks."

There is a moment of silence, and then Cheryl suddenly bursts out laughing, and it is, without doubt, the most beautiful sound Toni has ever heard. It is a high, clear sound that rings in the trees and even the small sliver of light has been sneaking in through the leaves looks brighter by its sheer radiance. She has never heard the girl laugh before, and this small display of joy lightens up her heart, brings her the peace she hasn't felt in ages. She kind of wants to hear it forever.

Cheryl finally stops laughing after a minute though her eyes still sparkle with mirth, and Toni feigns offence "You weren't supposed to laugh at me."

"You're so cute," Cheryl says, and it's quiet, and Toni knows she did not mean to say it out loud, knows it just came out of mouth because her usual filter was down, knows that if her knowledge of Cheryl Blossom is anything to go by, the girl will probably panic now. So, she pretends like she hasn't heard it, and starts a new topic of conversation. Cheryl seems relieved, and they move on to other, lighter matters.

If she were being completely honest, then Toni would say that she doesn't like this feeling very much at times. It's strange, and though she has liked other guys and girls before, it has never felt like this. It's never been this intense before, this need to see and be around Cheryl all the time, to a point where she keeps making up ridiculous excuses to go and talk to her. Fangs and Sweet Pea may laugh, but it scares her. This craving terrifies her, because she isn't used to feeling this vulnerable. Isn't used to second-guessing everything she does or says. Isn't used to having her smiles depend on the presence of this girl, this girl, this mere mortal who has so many issues she makes the rest of the population of Riverdale seem positively joyful by comparison.

And usually Toni wouldn't touch issues with a barge pole. Usually she would get it on with a stranger in the bathroom at the Whyte Wyrm, and forget about them, and not get attached, because her life has too many problems for her to have to worry about extra ones. But with Cheryl, it's different. With Cheryl, everything is different. She looks at her and she wants her to be happy. She sees her sad, and she wants to take her pain away. She wants to help her deal with the demons that haunt her, to stand beside her when there's a storm coming.

"What are you thinking?" Cheryl's voice floats from somewhere to her right, breaking her out of her train of thought. They'd been talking for about an hour, and when music came up suddenly, they'd gotten into an argument about the merits of their favorite songs, and so, in an attempt to "Enlighten the shit out of your Northside damaged hearing", Toni had put on music and just spaced out for a bit.

The opening bars of Simple Song starts playing, when Toni shakes her head, and shrugs "Nothing in particular. I just…..oh, I like this song."

Cheryl squints at her in the "I know what you're doing kind of way", but she just gets up, and starts swaying to the music slowly.

"What are you…doing?" her companion looks adorably confused, as if she has never heard of the concept of dancing before in her life.

"It's called dancing, you peasant," she teases, and Cheryl rolls her eyes at her.

"That's not dancing," she says, nose turned up.

"Sure it is," Toni retorts, arms up in the air like she's holding an invisible partner in her arms, and makes exaggerated movements, looking carefully at Cheryl as she does so. Sure enough, the redhead looks physically pained. One minute of her ridiculous dance and she's getting up.

"Ugh," she mutters, before she stands up right in front of Toni, and stills her. The movement brings them right up close, close enough that Toni can see the tiny freckles on Cheryl's nose, can see her face in extra focus.

"Okay," Cheryl continues, directing her. She maneuvers Toni's hand so it is on her waist, and the other hand is in hers "Now you move like this," she gently guides her feet in rhythm to the music, and that is when it suddenly hits Toni that they're dancing. They're dancing. Cheryl Blossom is right in front of her, chest to chest, eyes staring into her own, hand in hers, and they're dancing.

"You're dancing with me, Cheryl," Toni whispers to her in the middle of the song.

"Thank you for pointing that out, Captain Obvious," the girl in her arms snarks "By the way, you're really not as sneaky as you like to think you are, Toni Topaz."

"What sneaky plan are you talking about?" she asks, smug smile in place "You mean the one where I pretended to dance horribly so you would show me how it's done, thus resulting in us dancing together?"

"Yes," Cheryl replies, primly "And I saw through it. So it failed. Ha."

"Um, Cheryl?"

"Yes?"

"You're still dancing with me."

"Oh, shut up."


	5. Chapter 5

Toni doesn't think much about it the first time she sends Cheryl a song.

She's just chilling in the Whyte Wyrm, only half-paying attention as the other Serpents discuss some strategy for dealing with some out-of-control Ghoulies, and texting Cheryl, who is in class. They've all skipped school for today, even Jughead (who has been at the receiving end of FP's disapproving looks since the morning), to talk about this, and normally it would feel like a welcome break from all the snotty Northsiders who walk around looking down on them, but the strange thing is, she feels bereft somehow, like she's missing something.

"Probably a certain snotty Northsider, perhaps?" Fangs asks, annoying smirk on his face when she says it out loud.

She swats him on the arm, and Sweet Pea, suddenly appears out of nowhere, and drops into a chair beside them "Someone say Snotty Northsider? Oh, oh, are we talking about Toni's girlfriend again?"

"Fact number one, she's not my girlfriend. Fact number two, the Ghoulies are a huge threat to us and the safety of this town so FP, why aren't you berating these goons for not participating in the discussion?"

"Actually," FP tells her "Fact number three, meeting ended like five minutes ago. And fact number four, if I did berate them, I'd have to berate you for not paying attention at all during the meeting. And," he adds as an afterthought "Jughead too, for skipping class today. So why don't you stop complaining, and start dishing about this new girl of yours?"

There is a round of "Ooooh"'s from everyone around her, and she buries her face in her hands, defeated.

"She is not my girl," Toni starts speaking "She is a cheerleader. She is smart. And, that's it. That's all you assholes are going to get today."

The guys around her grumble but she stays firm, going back to her phone, and ignoring everyone who cries out for more. After a while, the crowd around her disperses, and the only person left beside her is FP. Fangs and Jughead are off discussing strategy, and Sweet Pea is off doing God-knows-what in some corner somewhere. Fp comes over and sits on the bench beside her, carefully dusting off a thick layer of dust off of it.

"Hey," he speaks slowly "I noticed that you weren't taking any names while you were speaking of her."

"I," she starts, but peters off when she sees the look in his eyes. It isn't easy to fool the King of the Serpents, and she should have known that "I…..thought you might have a problem with her."

"If anything, she should have a problem with me. I am most of the reason her brother is dead. That girl's been through hell, and a major reason for that have been the Serpents. I don't have anything against her, per se."

"Your son does," she tells him, a little bitter.

"Jughead doesn't always know best," he notes, with the wisdom of a father who has recently started being a proper father to his child, who still walks on eggshells trying to stop himself from screwing up their relationship even more than it is "He's still young, and he makes mistakes. And what does it matter to you, anyway? Is Jughead that important?"

"He's a friend. And…..I don't like it when people judge her. We've all done some fucked up things, and she's had the misfortune of a lot of fucked up things happening to her in her life."

"You really like her, huh?"

She nods slowly, and it feels a lot like a weight off her chest, because she hasn't admitted it to anyone out loud yet, not even Fangs and FP "I really like her. I like the way she thinks, and her soft voice, and the way it changes when she's talking to me. I like that she likes movies that make her cry, even though she 'Doesn't cry at movies when real life is tragic enough'. I like that she is funny, in like, a very mean and droll way, and that she is so, so strong. I wish I could explain exactly how much pain she has inside of herself, and how much love too. She is, truly, sensational."

FP is smiling at her by the time she finishes, a little out of breath from the passion with which she was speaking, and she looks away, embarrassed "I'm an idiot, aren't I?"

"No, you're just gone head over heels. It's nice to see."

"It's embarrassing," she whines "It's like, too much feelings at once. Bad ones. Like, Romeo and Juliet, would totally kill myself if I was stupid enough to think she was dead, The Great Gatsby, throw enormous parties for her just so she notices me."

"You forget being an ass because she short circuits your mother lode, Mr. Darcy style?" Jughead speaks from behind her, and she and FP both whirl around, surprised.

"Sorry," he holds up his hands "Just caught the end of that conversation. Couldn't help but eavesdrop when I heard my name being spoken."

FP gets up claps a hand onto her shoulder, as if he's wishing her luck, and walks off, smirking. Smug bastard.

"Look," he starts, but she cuts him off.

"We don't have to talk about it."

"I don't have a problem with Cheryl, Toni," he says "I mean, yeah, she is an asshole sometimes, and isn't very nice to me, but then again, we've never been any nice to her either. I think you guys would be good together."

"That's not….she doesn't…like me that way."

"You sure about that, buddy?" he asks, smug smirk reminiscent of his father's, and she kicks him away.

It isn't until after he's gone, and she's walking home for a change in the evening, that she actually thinks about it. She knows she likes Cheryl. She thinks the girl might even like her back. But strangely enough, she doesn't want to rush into anything. She only wants to talk to her all the time, she wants to look at her face, and touch her tiny freckles with her fingers. She wants to hold her in her arms tightly, and bury her face in her neck. She wants Cheryl to be safe, and warm and happy, and right now, that is all she wants.

Her uncle is passed out drunk and she knows that not even an earthquake would wake him until ten the next morning, so she leisurely undresses, brushes her teeth, and gets into bed to check her phone. There is a message from Cheryl from two hours ago, a selfie of her eating carrots, and it's a stupid photograph, with Cheryl wearing the stupidest smile possible, and yet, it fills Toni with so much emotion her breath catches in her throat for a moment. Cheryl isn't online, so she starts typing.

"I wish I was there with you, watching you eat carrots," she types "I wish I was there with you all the time, I wish you were smiling like this all the time, I wish, I wish, I wish, that I was the reason you were smiling all the time. Cheryl, she types recklessly, Cheryl, I think you're absolutely beautiful and that you absolutely take my breath away, and I like you. I like you so, so much. She finishes typing, looks at the message for a long, long time, and then presses backspace till the entire thing is gone. Then she goes to her music gallery, and goes through all the tracks, finally selecting "Fell for you" by Green Day. It takes a while loading, but after it's done, she starts typing again.

"Hey," she types again "You should hear this song."

Then she sends it.

Cheryl's reply comes after five minutes, after, Toni is assuming, she's done listening to the entire thing.

"Why this song?" shows up on her screen.

"I don't know," she replies honestly, taking a deep breath, and hopes Cheryl understands.

Toni thinks she does.


	6. Chapter 6

Toni is hiding in a closet.

That fact alone should be inspiring so many laughs right now, considering she hasn't ever really been in a closet at any period of her life, but laughter isn't the first thing on her mind currently. It's not even the second. Or the third. She has been sitting here since the morning, since she decided to skip school and play hooky, surrounded by old, dusty books and an old mop, a bucket, and a packet of wafers.

There's a knock on the door, and then Sweet Pea pokes his head in.

"Care to entertain visitors, Toots?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, squeezes his huge frame inside the door somehow, shuts it again, and then plonks down beside her.

"How did you even manage that?" she asks him, still a little surprised.

"I'm flexible, bitch," he deadpans, and usually, something like him calling her bitch would have her in fits of laughter, but she just smiles tiredly, and the expression on his face changes. It's more serious now, a little concerned.

"What's wrong, buddy?"

"Nothing," she says, automatically.

"Sure, and I totally didn't hook up with that hot chick we met serving coffee at that fancy place, at the party last Saturday."

"Sweets, I…wait, really?" she raises her hand, formed into a fist and he lightly bumps it with his "You going to see her again?"

"Date this Friday," he informs her, solemnly, and she smiles more effortlessly this time, genuinely happy for her idiot of a friend.

"Yeah, you gotta try harder there," he continues, gesturing to her face "That grin ain't fooling anyone."

"It's just a bad day," she sighs "That's okay. It'll be better tomorrow."

"But why is it a bad day?"

"I don't…..I'm too tired to explain it all," she says, and goes on when he opens his mouth in protest "It's okay, really, Sweets. I'm really okay."

He gives her an awkward side-hug from his scrunched up position, and she leans into him, grateful for the fact that he doesn't push anymore.

"Now tell me more about this girl of yours."

"Ah, the girl," he starts "The girl, this girl….."

Fangs doesn't even bother knocking. Just opens the door and squashes himself into the tiny space beside her. Drops down and grabs the wafers bag from her hand, immediately stuffing three into his mouth.

"Hey, Fangs, great to see you. I'm fine, how are you doing?" she mutters, with no heat behind her words. This is just the way he is. He ignores her, just keeps stuffing until his mouth is completely full. Then he takes another five minutes to chew his mouth free. He turns to her, and raises his eyebrows.

"What?" she asks.

"Let me guess, you've been listening to Green Day. More specifically, the American Idiot album. More specifically," he pauses now, in deep thought "Are we the waiting? So, am I right?"

She gapes at him, jaw open, eyes wide "Fangs. How did you?"

"Guessed," he shrugs, but after a moment, grins "Okay, I'm lying. I saw the song when you shut off your phone as I came in. But seriously, that'd have been pretty awesome, right?"

She punches his arms, but he's made her laugh, and she thinks maybe that was the point of it all.

"Also, I totally knew about the American Idiot album. That's your go-to album when you're pissed or sad. So, spill. And I don't mean the wafers, because I kind of already did some of that."

"I don't know, man. Don't really want to talk about it."

He doesn't say anything to that, instead switching topics in a heartbeat "So spill about your girl."

"What, I don't, she's," she sputters.

He doesn't deign to reply to that, just raises an eyebrow.

"I don't know," she admits "Haven't talked to her since day before yesterday."

"Oh, my, God," he exclaims, in his best approximation of a Valley Girl accent, palms on cheeks "Two whole days. However did you survive?"

"Shut up, Fangs. I just, have been feeling, well, not the best, and I don't want her to be here during that."

"Aren't girlfriends supposed to help you through that shit?" he looks confused.

"She's not my girlfriend," she reminds him.

"Right. I keep forgetting because of how whipped you've been acting lately."

Toni makes a face, and he ignores it.

"Seriously," he says "Why not just ask her out?"

"Because, Fangs, problems. Northside-Southside rivalry? Her mother? I'm not sure if she likes me back?"

"That's all?"

"No, it's…..I don't know if I want to. I don't know if she's ready, or whatever. This thing between us, it seems, different," she pauses then continues when he looks more confused than ever "Like, pure somehow. I don't want to call her my girlfriend or whatever, I mean, I wouldn't mind, obviously, but it's more like, I want to be there for her. I want to make her smile, I want her to not be sad. I'm fine just being friends as long as I get to be there for her."

She looks at him to makes sure he understands. He's got the most serious expression on his face, all solemn and pensive. It's quiet in there for a minute. Then

"That's so gay," comes out of his mouth, and they're both laughing so hard it hurts, they're laughing so hard that they'd literally be rolling on the floor if there was any space, instead they're just crashing into each other, and while Fangs's knee hurts against her head, it also makes her feel a tiny bit better.

Toni should've known Cheryl would come.

(Or maybe not. The girl's bloody unpredictable.)

But it honestly seems like a foregone conclusion when Toni hears a bunch of noises outside, like someone's arguing, and then suddenly Cheryl's cuts through the rest "Toni? I'm coming in."

And for the first time that day, Toni gets to see someone not bludgeon their way inside. Inside Cheryl gently opens the door, gets in, closes it behind her, and looks down at her.

And if Toni hadn't already been floored by hearing her voice after two whole days (Seriously, Fangs can laugh, but not being able to hear the girl's voice was pure torture), she now looks up at Cheryl's face, at her perfect face with her beautiful eyes, and her cute nose, and her sunset red hair, and she swears she can feel her eyes exiting their sockets and molding themselves into little red hearts.

(Okay, she's a cliché)

"Hey," she says, a little dazed.

"Hey yourself," Cheryl replies, and sets her bag down "I brought supplies."

Then she proceeds to take out two burgers, a takeaway packet of fries, four chocolate bars, and a can of Coke from it.

"What's all this?" Toni asks her.

"Food?"

"No, I mean, I see that but….why?"

"Fangs and Sweet Pea told me you weren't feeling well, so I thought I'd…wait, do you not like this?" she looks worried now, biting her bottom lip, and God, this girl is so fucking precious Toni can't even.

"No, its," _Too much of an effort for me. Cheryl, it's too much of an effort for me, I can't, nobody has ever taken this much of an effort for me, and I cannot believe how head over heels I am for you right now_ "Perfect."

They eat and talk for the next fifteen minutes. Cheryl obviously has a lot of gossip to share, and her stream of conversation never dries up, jumping from Archie to Betty to Veronica to Reggie, and Toni, for her part, does her best to follow along. Mostly, she's just content to stare at the other girl.

"You want to tell me what's wrong with you?" she asks, when they're done eating, and there's a lull in the discussion.

"It's not, really something I want to bother you with," Toni tells her, honestly.

"And if it had been something that bothered me, I wouldn't have asked," Cheryl replies.

There's silence, again, and then it all comes out. There's obviously the fight with the Ghoulies, which is how it started, and then it segues onto how she came back to the trailer when her uncle was drunk, and still awake, and how it resulted in one of the worst arguments she had ever had in her life, and how scared she was for a moment, of how, even if she had two knives hidden in her jacket, she's never felt more like a defenseless child than then, and that….

"I don't want to feel like that again, okay?" Toni blurts out, her voice cracking, and wow, when had she even started crying? "I am part of a gang, and I have my brothers and sisters to back me up, but it sometimes, it sometimes sucks that I never had a real family of my own. It…..it sucks that I can't call someone up in the middle of the night when I'm scared or tired or angry or just fucking lonely. I am tired of being so angry and scared and sad and lonely, I'm tired, I'm so tired."

Cheryl reaches out for her, and suddenly Toni's in her arms, her head buried in Cheryl's soft neck. There are hands running through her hair, and she's sobbing really, really, hard and she would be embarrassed except it's Cheryl, and Toni doesn't want to hide from her. At all.

"Darling," Cheryl whispers to her, and her voice sounds pained somehow. She doesn't say anything else after that, doesn't tell her it's going to be alright, doesn't tell her that it's fine. She just holds her, and Toni wonders if Cheryl will keep holding her forever, because she thinks she's already falling.


	7. Chapter 7

_Cheryl meets them all back at the Whyte Wyrm._

 _A year ago, it would probably have shocked all the Serpents to have the Northiest of the Northsiders sitting on a barstool in their hangout, their Montague estate, their base of operations, but now nobody gives a second glance at the girl demurely sitting and sipping at a cup of coffee (not that the coffee is a Whyte Wyrm special. Cheryl Blossom might be spending almost all of her time after school here, but there is no way that she would drink anything other than the fanciest coffee in the world). And that's how Toni comes upon her. After they've driven back to Southside territory, and Fangs has left for_ _ **stuff,**_ _she and Sweet alight from their bikes._

" _You do know what stuff meant, right?" Sweet asks her, once they are walking back from the parking lot._

" _Yes, Sweets, I know what stuff means. It means that he's going to meet the Ryan Murphy of Riverdale High, our very own Kevin Keller, and possibly make out with him."_

 _He looks sideways at her, frowning in disbelief "How do you know about them?"_

" _I have eyes, buddy. I observe," she tells him, sagely "How did you find out?"_

" _I have eyes too, Toni," he declares "I observe."_

 _She doesn't say anything to that, just keeps staring at him._

" _Okay, I caught them making out under the bleachers," the boy continues quietly, and she bursts into laughter._

 _Hungry like the wolf is playing in the bar when they enter. Jughead is the first one to catch sight of them, and when the others see him looking, a huge cheer goes up. Then the both of them are surrounded by a lot of bodies, asking questions, or congratulating them on another battle won. Toni tries to get out, but with the large number of questions to answer and updates to give, it takes her another ten minutes to talk to all the relevant people, and escape the crowd. She makes her way to the bar, to a girl sitting with her back to Toni, some kind of beverage in hand._

" _Ten bucks says when you turn around, I say wow," she says._

" _Ten bucks says when I turn around, I kick your ass for rushing into danger for absolutely no reason at all," Cheryl retorts, swiveling around on the stool, sounding absolutely exasperated._

 _Toni grins at her girlfriend, the concern in her eyes as she checks her over for any injuries taking away the sting in her words. Cheryl scowls at her, then raises her hand and traces her face, starting at her chin and moving over her cheeks._

" _You're hurt," she tells Toni, fingers hovering over that one bruise from when one of the Ghoulies had slammed her face first into a table._

 _(Ah, the thrills of youth)_

" _Totally worth it," Toni replies, and Cheryl swats the back of her head._

" _Ow," she whines, and her girlfriend's expression turns tender. She asks for a first aid kit from a nearby Serpent, and after she's got it, starts pouring a little disinfectant onto a ball of cotton. As soon as she's done, she dabs a little of it on the cut._

" _Oh sure, go rushing off into fights but whine when the tiniest bit of iodine touches your skin," Cheryl mutters, as Toni hisses and protests the medication. When she pouts at that, Cheryl smiles fondly, and suddenly envelops her in a hug._

" _What?" she asks, voice muffled into a soft, sweet-smelling shoulder._

" _Nothing," comes the reply "You're an idiot. And I love you like one."_

" _Really?"_

" _Baby, we've been together for six months now. I fell like it's time you got over me telling you that I love you."_

" _Never!" Toni declares "I will never get over the greatest, awesomest girl in the world being in love with me."_

 _Cheryl rolls her eyes, but even that looks fond, and Toni stands on her tiptoes to press a kiss to her lips, because, well, Cheryl Blossom._

" _By the way," her girlfriend murmurs against her lips "You owe me a date. You ruined this one again."_

" _But baby, the Ghoulies."_

" _I don't care if Thor himself descended from the heavens to fight you. You still owe me a date."_

" _You're such a nerd. How am I attracted to you?"_

 _Cheryl flips her off, and she laughs "Besides, I've owed you dates since our first one up on that hill."_

" _That wasn't our first date."_

" _Uh," Toni feigns offence, pulling away "Totally was."_

" _Nope, doesn't count. For one, I didn't know it was a date."_

" _Well, then, that's your fault, isn't it, because it was totally our first date."_

It's pretty much a normal day at Riverdale High.

Jughead and Betty broke up and got back together in two hours, Archie performed his new original in the lawns and scared off the gardeners for the entire day, Veronica started a flash mob in the corridors which then somehow resulted in an all-out fight between the Bulldogs and the Serpents, Sweet Pea broke the nose of two freshmen, Fangs is somehow MIA, and Cheryl Blossom has already made five girls, and one very timid-looking substitute professor cry.

(So, all in all, par for the course)

"But…how?"

"Eh, it's the school," Veronica tells her, lounging on a couch in the Activity Room "Everyone's a little crazy in here."

Betty enter the room just then, looking mildly terrified "Nobody's being crazier than Cheryl right now. She nearly bit my head off for sneezing."

"Well, she is kind of a germophobe," Toni tries to defend her.

"I was all the way on the other end of the corridor!"

"Oh."

"I'm telling you, you have to do something."

Toni looks around to see that everyone is staring at her, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead looking hopeful.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you looking at me?"

"Because you're the Blossom whisperer?" Jughead says.

"Because you're the only one she listens to?" comes from Betty.

"Because she's your girlfriend?" and now, everyone turns to Veronica instead; who rolls her eyes "What, you think I don't have eyes?"

Five minutes of blushing, ten minutes of protesting, and fifteen minutes of whining later, Toni finds Cheryl sitting at the Vixens locker room, scowling at the floor.

"Stop stalking me," she says, without looking up at Toni.

"It's me," she says, surprised.

"Okay, then, Cha Cha, stop stalking me."

Cheryl really is in a vile mood today. Usually, (and this is something every one of the Serpents has noticed by now, not just her) Toni is the exception to all her bad days. But nothing seems to be working this time, and funnily enough, it doesn't deter her. She sits down on the bench next to Cheryl, and takes out her camera.

"You know…"

"I really don't care, so don't bother."

"There was this one time, I was out hiking with Sweet Pea and Fangs," Toni continues, as though Cheryl hasn't just cut her off "It was up on a hill, not far from Riverdale…."

And slowly, she tells the entire story of how the three of them had come upon a bear in the woods, a huge, black bear that seemed to want to rip their guts out. She tells her the tale of how the three of them had battled the beast; how they had to kill it, just to save their own skins. She tells her of the blood that flowed that day, of how Fangs nearly lost an arm, and how Sweets almost fell off the cliff in an attempt to save himself.

"And that's how I got this scar here," Toni says, pointing to the tiny cross on her eyebrow.

"Oh my God" Cheryl says, at the end of the thrilling narrative that had taken up a considerable amount of time, riveted against her will "Did that really happen?"

"No," Toni replies "Of course that didn't really happen, you idiot."

There is a pause and then Cheryl punches her arm hard enough to draw a wince.

"But the scar?"

"What, that?" Toni chuckles "Tripped over my own feet in the shower."

"Either way," she goes on "It did get you to at least calm down long enough to listen to me, so….."

"You're the worst."

"I know, I know. I'm the absolute worst. Do you want me tell me what's wrong, now?"

"No, not really," Cheryl replies, and now it doesn't sound defiant, just a little sad and tired.

"Don't want to talk about it?" Toni asks her, gently.

Cheryl nods, and the movement is so sad it makes her want to do something, anything, to make her feel better. That's when it strikes her.

"Okay, get up, we're going places."

Places happens to be a spot up a small hill, just a little ways from Sweetwater river, one that Toni has trekked to multiple times in the past with her friends. They go by bike, with Cheryl staying quiet all throughout the ride, just loosely keeping her hands around her waist till they get to the place. Toni parks her bike, then spreads the blanket she has kept to carrying all the time, in case of impromptu picnics, and they both sit down on it.

"Why are we here?" Cheryl asks her, after a while of just silence.

"Because the sunset looks pretty from up here. Plus," she adds, hands fiddling with the strap of her camera "I wanted to take good photos."

"Why photography?" the girl sitting beside her asks, looking at her curiously "I mean, what's the draw?"

"The draw is that sometimes I look at something and it seems beautiful, and I want to remember the way it made me feel, forever. You know this earth keeps rotating and revolving, and if you take into account wind patterns, and tides and what-not, the chances of any place staying the exact same, even after the timespan of one second is pretty much impossible. Like, there is no way that that leaf on that tree is going to be tilted at the same angle two days from now. But now, now, it's tilted at a certain angle and it looks nice, and it makes me feel happy, and that is why, I will take a photo of it. Because I want to keep it with me forever. This place and the way it makes me feel."

Cheryl regards her for a moment, then slowly leans forward, and rests her head on Toni's shoulder. She doesn't say anything, just burrows into her neck in a movement so delicate and so soft, it seems like she's scared she's going to be rejected. And that small thing makes Toni ache somewhere deep inside her chest, makes her want to hold her forever, and take away all of her pain.

"Cheryl," she says, hand on her shoulder, pulling her closer, _Cheryl, sweetheart, do you know you are loved? Do you know that you are important? Do you know that my entire world revolves around you? That if you let me, I will stand by your side, and I will take all of the hurt this world throws at you, because you've been alone, and scared and lonely for so long, and I don't want you to feel that way anymore? Do you know that I am here if you want me, to help you fight your battles? Do you know you're not alone anymore?_

But she doesn't say all of this, just holds Cheryl, and hopes that the message gets across all the same.

It's nearing evening now, nearly three hours from the time they set off from school, and Toni is currently lecturing Cheryl on the finer points of Progressive Rock.

"You're not listening," she reprimands her, when Cheryl exaggeratedly yawns.

"But it's so boring!"

"Listen," she tells her, as the upbeat guitar riff of Aquarium plays in the background "This is the part where he falls in love with the mermaid. Like, he's trapped her in his aquarium, and is taking advantage of the fact that she's a novelty to get money, but, but then they start talking, and they fall in love."

"Does this album have a happy ending?" Cheryl asks her.

"Well," Toni replies "Humanity is saved and the guy survives and….."

"Nope, not what I asked."

Toni looks at her "No. They don't end up together."

Cheryl gives her look that clearly says _"Bam, there you go, not listening to this, bye."_

"Do you know how amazing this thing, this band, this album is? I mean, the sheer musical genius alone…." She starts, ready to go into one of her rants, when the girl excitedly taps her on the arm.

"The sun, the sun," she says "It's setting. Get your camera!"

Toni readies her camera, trains it on the scene, and then something makes her pause and turn to the girl beside her. Cheryl is looking at the sunset, face illuminated by the orange glow, and her hair is fire against the sky. Toni has seen a million sunsets, and yet nothing, no amount of beauty will ever compare to this, this girl who seems to carry Toni's heart in her hands. She readies her camera, turns to Cheryl and clicks a photo of her staring at the sun with the entire world in her eyes.

"You were supposed to be taking photos of the sunset," Cheryl tells her "Moment of beauty, remember?"

Toni smiles at her "Yeah, got it already."


	8. Chapter 8

_**My dearest Cheryl,**_

 _ **I don't usually do this sort of thing. I am pretty sure that if Sweet Pea and Fogarty ever find out about this, I am doomed. They will tease me to my grave, and their laughter would haunt me forever. And that is why this will probably never see the light of day. I am going to write this letter, and then stuff it into a locked box, and throw it under my bed where it will hopefully never be found by my uncle.**_

 _ **Anyways, I have dithered about long enough. Let's get down to business. I have never written a love letter before, (or so I've mentioned in the previous paragraph), so I am not sure of the logistics, but I assume it includes a flattering description of your love's physical features, mental faculties, and how it all makes you feel. So let's start somewhere there.**_

 _ **So, I could write sonnets about your beauty and novels about your face, but thing is, you don't need to be told that. You know exactly how beautiful you are. I mean, sure your face is perfect, and your nose is the cutest thing I have ever seen, and your eyes are the stars guiding me home and blah, but what's the need? You could describe your face way better than I ever can. Just know that you are the prettiest person in the world to me. I feel like that's enough.**_

 _ **But your beauty, while divine, is not all that attracted me to you. There is just something about you, Cheryl. How strong you are, how fiercely independent, how brave. I know you don't believe it yourself, but there's a lot of good in you. You try not to show it to people, but you're amazing. You're smart, and you're funny, and I wish other people could see that in you too.**_

 _ **Cheryl Blossom, you're absolutely sensational.**_

 _ **I suppose that brings us to an end of this section. Now, there is something else I'd like to add. I'd like to add my resume here, to sell myself, so there's a chance of you choosing me, even If you are way out of my league.**_

 _ **I am a serpent. That ought to say that I am pretty badass. No matter how many stories Fangs tells you of me standing on one chair for an entire day because there was supposedly a rat in the room.**_

 _ **I can play the ukulele. And while my voice is horrible, I suppose it's a nice thing to have a girlfriend who will serenade you all the time. Because seriously, I will.**_

 _ **I know you. I know about your embarrassing childhood spill-ups and your marks, and that one goth phase in middle school that lasted a month. I know all of these. And I would love to know more.**_

 _ **I am tiny, but I will love you and protect you all the time. That is a promise.**_

 _ **Anyway, I have rambled on long enough. Thank you for bearing with me throughout all this.**_

 _ **Yours, eternally**_

 _ **Toni**_

* * *

" _It's okay, you can come out now," Cheryl tells her._

 _She hears it as if from very far away, which she supposes makes sense because her head is buried under two cushions, and her girlfriend's arm. She slowly takes them off, and, still grimacing from embarrassment, chances a look at Cheryl's face. Which isn't so bad. The girl is absolutely glowing; her cheeks are bright red, and she's wearing the widest smile ever. She slowly shifts onto Cheryl's lap._

" _Okay, now that the torture is over, can I have this back?"_

" _Absolutely not!" Cheryl tells her, sternly "I'm keeping this till the end of eternity. Which, coincidentally, is the amount of time you'll be mine. Just saying."_

 _Toni groans._

" _Did you like it, though?" she asks, then._

 _Cheryl's expression softens from mirth to something tenderer "I loved it. I love you. Thank you for writing this. It's amazing."_

 _Toni ducks her head in an 'Aw Shucks', kind of way and waves it away "Eh, it's…whatever. No big deal."_

" _When did you write this, though? There's no date on it."_

 _She thinks for a while "Uh, I think it was the first time I serenaded you."_

" _Really?"_

" _Yeah, yeah. This one, I definitely wrote right after that."_

 _Cheryl kisses her cheek, and then frowns at her "Wait, did you say this one?"_

 _Uh oh._

" _Toni, are there more!?"_

* * *

The night of the serenade is a funny story.

Mostly because it also is The night of a Fangs and Sweet Pea and Toni adventure and The night of the human pyramid and The night of Archie doing something stupid and Veronica somehow enabling it even more and Jughead trying to be all brooding and unaffected as always and Betty making everything ten times worse and funnier. Either way, you know, it's a fun night.

It starts with the jukebox.

Which is ironical, since the jukebox doesn't start.

* * *

" _Baby, no."_

" _But, Cheryl."_

" _No means no, buddy," Fangs cuts in "We've told you multiple times it's a terrible joke."_

* * *

So, the jukebox isn't starting at the Whyte Wyrm, and they've all taken turns smashing on the metal cover but the sound fizzles out after a while, and that's when Archie has the bright idea of entertaining the patrons by singing some songs.

Veronica joins in and they end up doing a terrible duet of the High School Musical song which only the drunk biker dudes from out of town appreciate. Jughead spends the entire evening roasting them. Finally, Veronica has had enough, and challenges him to sing. Which, obviously, Betty takes over. Then she, does a terrible version of Teenage Dream, and another terrible three way group song with Archie and Veronica. In the end, it's just Toni and Fangs and Sweet Pea and Jughead staring at each other in despair.

Talk somehow shifts to the topic of music, does a jump to the subject of romantic music, and before she knows it, Toni has, in a weird game of Truth and Dare, somehow agreed to serenade Cheryl Blossom.

Veronica voices the only concern that exists "Isn't her mom, like legit insane? How the fuck are we supposed to make a ruckus in her house?"

And Cheryl feels relieved for a moment, right until Fogarty opens his big fat mouth "Her mom's out of town, dude," he says "Got this thing."

"How do you know?"

He just looks at Toni and everyone nods in understanding.

* * *

"I hope you know that this is ridiculous," she tells the entire group, half an hour later as she's sitting on Sweets' lap, who is stuffed in the middle of Jughead and Veronica. Archie's driving, and Betty is drifting off to sleep on the passenger's seat beside him. Fangs is crouched in the back of the van.

"What's so ridiculous about joining two souls in eternal union?" Veronica asks her.

"Oh my God, is that what it is? Are you…shipping us?" Toni asks her, in utter disbelief, and there are three simultaneous snort, one from Jughead, Sweets and Fangs.

"Everybody in the school ships you, dude," Fangs tells her.

"It's true," Archie chips in "Ever since you've started hanging out with her, Cheryl's mellowed. Like, a lot."

"And you guys would be so cute together," Veronica gushes "Like, if this was a TV show, you'd deserve to be the couple in focus, no questions asked. Every scene would be you. Every song would be you. Every duet would be you. Every…."

"We get it, Veronica," Jughead pipes up, quiet yet amused "They are your babies."

Veronica agrees, and Toni closes her eyes, wishes for this nightmare to be over.

* * *

Of course it isn't.

Veronica and Archie are still singing their terrible duet, as they cross the garden. Jughead is half-supporting, half-carrying Betty, who's mostly asleep. Sweet Pea is still nursing his bottle, and they are all so, terribly, terribly drunk. Oh, and Fangs somehow manages to ruin the rose plants growing at the edge of the fence as they are breaking it, but falling on them. Then, he squeals like a little girl who has just discovered that Ken is gay.

* * *

" _I did not squeal."_

" _The thorns are on my butt, guys, help me," Sweet Pea mimics a high-pitched voice, and all of them laugh._

* * *

"Juliet, Juliet, wherefore art thou?" Archie and Veronica shout up at the window, trying to hit it with tiny pebbles (Only one of them hits the mark) "Your Romeo is here to drop a verse."

There is a sound, then Cheryl is out on the balcony, looking the most confused anyone has ever seen her "Andrews? What the hell?"

(And Toni knows this is totally not the time, that she has to do something potentially very embarrassing and stupid, but Cheryl looks adorable, hair all mussed up, and eyes squinting, wearing a green nightgown that has mice on it)

(Toni has never been more in love)

"My babies!" Veronica sighs, and that's when Cheryl notices the rest of them.

"What are you people doing here in the middle of the night? Toni?"

She stares at Cheryl for a minute, deciding how to scream her explanation. The, deciding against it, she recruits Fangs (who is still whining about his butt) and Sweet Pea to bend so she can climb up on them. It takes fifteen minutes, one broken wine bottle, and three rounds of exasperated sighs from the rest of the audience before she can finally get up on the balcony.

"Surprise?" she says, feebly.

"Why are you here? What's going on? Why does Veronica keep staring at us like we're her long-lost daughters? Why do you have that ukulele with you?"

"Um, truth or dare. A stupid dare. Because she ships us. And" Toni says, concentrating "I have to sing you a song?"

"Um."

"It's a dare," she explains, blushing.

Cheryl keeps staring at her in silence, so she carefully wears the ukulele, and starts playing the opening chords of "Can't help falling in love with you". She tries not to look at Cheryl's face, during, too embarrassed, instead concentrating on the chords and how not to let her voice fade away. Finally ending it, she chances a look up at the other girl.

Cheryl's mouth is pursed, but Toni can clearly see that it's an attempt to mask her smile. She looks a little red around the cheeks, and though her arms are crossed, she isn't angry at all.

"So…..that was it," Toni breaks the silence that has fallen over them.

"That was it," Cheryl replies, a slight smile on her lips.

"You're not, angry?"

The smile widens, and before Toni has time to think, Cheryl is right in front of her. She leans around, and gently kisses Toni on the cheek. There is a loud 'Whoop' from down below, and Toni knows they're being complete idiots right now, but it doesn't matter, because she is also being a complete idiot right now.

"No, Toni," Cheryl says "I'm not angry."

Then she walks back into her own room.


	9. Chapter 9

She decides to ask Cheryl Blossom out exactly three months, one week, and two days after they meet for the first time. She has already thought of the place, the time, the venue, and the situation. Take her out on one of their weekend picnics, broach the topic over Coke. She doesn't want to make a song and dance about it (Mostly because their entire relationship already is a song and dance). It's going to be a casual, no-pressure ask. It is not a big deal.

"Oh, my God this is a big deal!" Fangs and Sweet Pea declare loudly as they jump out of their seats, spilling their iced teas over each other in the process. Veronica, who has recently started hanging out at the Whyte Wyrm with the Serpents, bursts into laughter, and even Jughead cracks an amused smile.

"No, it is not," she tells them.

"Moving over that extremely hilarious moment back there," Veronica starts "This is a big thing. There's going to be a new power couple in Riverdale High, and what's more, it's going to be my babies. Move over Bughead, move over Varchie, here comes….drumroll please….Choni!"

"You do realize you're one half of Varchie, right?" Jughead inquires very politely, and is waved away.

"Irrelevant."

"Either way," Toni announces to the entire crowd "This is kind of important to me, and I don't want anyone freaking her out or scaring her off, so, everyone. Stays. Away. From. Her. Got it?"

"You have got to chill out, buddy," Fangs tells her, hand on her shoulder "It's gonna be alright."

So, of course it isn't alright.

It's the exact opposite of alright, where everything that can possibly go wrong, goes wrong, and it ends with Toni's heart lying somewhere on the floor of Cheryl's bedroom, terribly bruised, and Toni herself, at the Whyte Wyrm getting terribly drunk with Sweet Pea and Fangs while the Scooby gang tries to make her feel better by singing her terrible covers of death metal songs.

But that's getting too ahead of the story.

Backing up a week, three days after the meeting at the Whyte Wyrm, Toni still hasn't asked Cheryl out. People keep asking her why; every time Sweet Pea passes her in the corridor he raises his eyebrows in a "Why aren't you off making out with your girlfriend yet?" way; Fangs keeps hopefully half-raising his hand in a fist bump kind of way, and then lowering it when she shakes her head slightly. Jughead is curious too, but he doesn't ask, and doesn't let Betty interrogate her either, for which Toni is extremely grateful. Veronica is the most impatient of them all, keeps asking her when the "big thing" is going to happen, to which she keeps explaining that she can't do anything because Cheryl hasn't been coming to school.

And it has her worried. Even if Cheryl misses school, she always texts her and tells her why. But there's been radio silence for the past three days, not one text, not one midnight call. Toni misses her. Misses her soft, sweet voice on the phone late night as they talk till two, misses her presence in school, the scent of her perfume, intoxicating and alluring. She's had Veronica ask every girl who lives within one mile of Thistlehouse if they've seen Cheryl anywhere, but there's no response.

She texts her some more, asks her where she is, but when there is no reply, she decides to fuck it, and go over there herself. She drives her bike over to just out of sight of Thistlehouse, parks it behind a huge tree, and carefully, sneaks onto the lawns. Spends about half an hour figuring how to get to Cheryl's room, the next half climbing the scarily-frail tree next to her balcony. It's dark inside the room, but she can make out a lump on the bed, that she assumes is Cheryl.

"Cheryl?" she whispers, loud enough that only the girl in the room would be able to hear her "Cheryl, It's me."

There's a startled movement, and then suddenly Cheryl gets up "Toni? What are you doing here?"

Toni just stares. The other girl's face is in the shadows, but she can still make out her features, and she is so in love with her it's ridiculous. Her heart twists in her chest, skips a beat, as though trying to get used to being in Cheryl's presence again. The world turns right again, and Toni wonders how she could have ever gone three days without being around her, without hearing her voice. Now that she's back, she doesn't want to leave. Ever.

"I….you weren't replying to my texts" she finally explains, as Cheryl walks up to her, eyes wide and frightened.

"I was busy," she explains, shortly "Toni, you have to go, my mother's here, you can't…."

"It's okay," she reassures her "I snuck in. Nobody has any idea. It's cool."

"No, it's not. You have to go," Cheryl tells her, pushing her towards the large French doors leading to the balcony.

"Hey, hey, what's up?" Toni stops her, grabbing her arm. Cheryl winces, and she lets go immediately "You go AWOL for a few days, and now you won't even look at me."

There's silence.

"Bombshell," she tries again "What's wrong?"

They're still standing too close, and when Toni tries to touch her chin in order to get her to look at her, the girl flinches, and that's when she notices the bruise. It's well-hidden with makeup, but from this close, she can make out a dark shape on her cheek, and for a moment, she goes blank. For a moment refuses to acknowledge this….this blasphemy. The fact that someone would hurt the girl standing in front of her, taller than her, and still smaller than anything she has ever seen in her life. Her stomach turns, and she feels sick.

"Cheryl," she says, very carefully, voice taut with rage, after a minute "Did your mother do this to you?"

Cheryl goes absolutely still "You should go."

"No, I, fuck that," she says, in a daze. She raises her hand, gently cups her face, careful to avoid the bruise "How dare she?"

"Toni, please."

"Come with me," she says, desperately. She isn't thinking, isn't thinking past this room; she just wants to get Cheryl away from this horrible place, just wants her safe.

"You know I can't," Cheryl whispers, and her voice wavers, she herself is trembling like a leaf. A tear drips onto Toni's palm, and it almost kills her. Cheryl's pain strikes her right between the ribs, twisting it's way in like a rusty knife to the chest.

"No, don't cry, please, sweetheart," the endearment slips out, but Cheryl lets out a tiny sob, and she can't stop herself anymore. She leans in, presses a kiss to the hollow just below her right eye, wipes the tear away. She repeats the motion with the left, and then keeps kissing her face, her cheeks, her forehead. Cheryl leans into it, for a sweet minute, and then suddenly twists away.

"I'm sorry," Toni immediately says.

"I can't….I can't do this," Cheryl says, arms crossed, voice still weak, but firm.

"Do what?"

"You…..me….any part of it. I just, I can't…."

"Nobody's asking you anything right now."

"I know how you feel about me," Cheryl tells her, flatly, looking down at the floor, arms still crossed, voice strangely flat, detached "I just don't feel the same way."

Toni takes a step further into her personal space "Look at me while you say it."

"Toni, go," Cheryl whispers, still not looking at her.

"Look at me."

"Go," Cheryl cries out, pushing Toni away so hard she stumbles "Go. Go. I don't want you here. I don't want you in my life. I don't, I don't want you. Is that clear enough for you? I don't want you!"

"You don't mean that," Toni says, voice trembling pathetically now, and damn it, while there's a part of her that knows that what the other girl is saying is a lie, it is somehow being overpowered by the other half. There are tears in her eyes, and she furiously blinks them away, still trying to hold onto hope.

"I don't care what you think I mean," Cheryl tells her, turning away, and walking to her bed "Please, leave."

And Toni does.


	10. Chapter 10

There are things Toni does not know about Cheryl.

Toni does not know about her childhood, about the days when she and Jason were tiny and happy, and life was almost good, with just an undercurrent of sorrow and loneliness running through it.

She does not know about Heather, apart from the bare minimum (about the nights spent crying her eyes out in her bed, about the weeks of punishment of kneeling in the attic and praying for forgiveness to a God she didn't believe in, about the pain whenever they'd pass each other in the corridors in school). She doesn't know about the day Heather left, and how she punched an old tree over and over till the pain in her hands was the only thing she could comprehend.

She does not know about Sweetwater river, about the cold and the ice, and the horror of seeing her dead brother, bullet hole in his head, try to drag her down to her death. She doesn't know about Jughead and Veronica and Betty and Archie saving her, about how, when she'd opened her eyes, she'd been both grateful and disappointed to find herself alive.

She does not know about the bruises and the slaps, about the "You'll never find love, you worthless child" and the constant abuse.

Cheryl keeps things close to her chest. Doesn't let anyone in, doesn't let anything out. She eats up her sorrow, and she swallows the pain, and pushes it deep inside, so she doesn't have to feel it.

(It doesn't work. It doesn't work at all, but at least people don't know about it, and she can keep her reputation, at least)

And nobody asks. Nobody asks why she's so horrible, they just assume that's the things are, that she is someone who causes hurt because she wants to, because she revels in it, and she lets them. Nobody has ever cared.

But Toni does. Toni challenges her, and she doesn't back down, not even when Cheryl pushes her away. She simply looks her in the eyes, and takes one step further into her personal space, and asks her why she's hurting. She listens to Cheryl talk, and she is patient, and kind, and Cheryl feels like she cares. That she cares about her. And that in itself is such a foreign concept that it stumps her, it confuses her. Why does this tiny, intimidating South sider care so much? Why does she follow her around, and listen to her talk and complain and whine about her life?

So, after a while, she starts opening up. And for every one incident Toni doesn't know about, she tells her a million others. Toni knows about the TV shows she loves binge watching (about How I met your mother when she's losing faith in the concept of love, and Brooklyn Nine Nine when she just wants to laugh), knows about her days of dance, knows about her favorite books and her favorite novel characters. She knows about the way Cheryl feels about Sushi, and chicken, and lasagna. Toni knows about all the little things.

There's nothing in the world that scares her more than Toni getting close to her and being dragged inside the abyss that is her life. Or her mother finding out about them and taking away the only good thing in her world. Or the fear that someday she herself might hurt Toni with her darkness.

So, she keeps quiet. She doesn't tell Toni about the first time she fell in love, exactly a month ago, when they'd been sitting on a hill and Toni had jumped about four feet when a spider had landed on her lap. She doesn't tell Toni about the way she treasures every song she sends her, how she listens to them when she can't sleep and it feels a lot like Toni is sitting beside her. She doesn't tell Toni that she wants her to know every part of her life, every secret she has ever kept, because all of it belongs to her anyways.

She doesn't tell Toni that she loves her back.

And she does a great job of it. She keeps her face neutral every time one of the Serpents pass her, every time Sweet Pea or Fangs glare at her, whenever Toni passes by, unusually subdued and not quite meeting her eyes. It kills her, but she still doesn't speak. Not till the fifth day, that is the third day of Toni not turning up to school.

It's a text from Veronica at 8 in the evening, a tiny text that says "Whyte Wyrm. Now. Toni."

And she doesn't think anymore, grabs her car keys and runs out the house before her mother can see.

She puts on the radio during the drive, mostly to distract herself from the thoughts in her head. Toni lying on the ground, having been stabbed. Or shot. Or beaten. Her mind cannot shake the thoughts of Toni lying in physical pain somewhere, and her fingers tap on the steering wheel in her anxiety. There is an intense wave of panic threatening to take over right now, but she tries to keep it at bay, speeds up and tries to focus on getting there as fast as she can.

There's no extra bustle outside the bar, and that gives her a little hope. She parks it somewhere outside, and rushes out of it so fast she nearly crashes into Veronica who's waiting near the entrance.

"Veronica," she pants out "What happened? Where's Toni? Is she alright? Did someone hurt her? Tell me she's fine. Tell me….."

"She's fine."

The relief that rushes through her body is indescribable. Every part of her relaxes, and she takes her first deep breath since the text.

"Why'd you call me, then?" she asks finally.

Veronica looks at her evenly "If you're this much in love with her, why don't you just tell her?"

"I'm not sure that's any of your business."

"Oh, shut up," the other girl tells her, grabbing her arm and dragging her to the back of the bar, inside a dingy alleyway "She's a friend. I care about her. All of us do. And by extension, we care about you."

"Oh, do you now?" Cheryl retorts, sharply "Nobody's ever given a shit about my fucking life. Except when there's a chance of me testifying against the man who is one of the reasons my brother is dead. Then, you've cared plenty. Plenty enough to blackmail me."

"You should know Betty regrets it."

"And you should know I don't give a fuck."

"It's not like you've made it easier on us, you know? You've caused a bit of trouble yourself."

She shrugs and leans against the wall, suddenly tired and defeated "A little trouble is an understatement. And that's why I can't…be whatever you think I should be to Toni."

"What do you mean?" Veronica asks her, no judgment in her eyes. Suddenly she is the girl who came after her during the pep-rally, and Cheryl misses the feeling of having friends.

"I'm a goddamned mess, Veronica. I am mean, and vindictive, and chaos follows me wherever I go. At the risk of sounding like the ever-brooding Jughead, I'm not normal. I'm a special brand of crazy. My family is fucked up. My father was a murderer; my mother is a psychopath, and I'm sure I've inherited their darkness. I can't let her get mixed up in my issues."

"She wants to get mixed up in your issues, Cheryl," Veronica tells her.

"And I can't let her. She's the one good thing I have in my life, she is the one good thing this stupid town has. She is good, and kind, and brave, and I don't know why she cares about me, but she does. And I…I think I love her. No, I know I love her. And I have been selfish about a lot of things, but for the first time in my life, I don't want to be."

She stops, out of breath from her impassioned speech, and looks at Veronica, who, unbelievably, is smiling at her.

"What?" she snaps.

"You don't see it, do you?" she asks her, gently.

"See what?"

"How changed you are. You're not the same Cheryl Blossom I met the beginning of last year. You have changed in ways that everyone apart from you can see. You're…well, I wouldn't say kinder, but you've stopped snapping at random people, you've stopped being mean to Kevin…."

"Oh, that's because Fangs is banging him, and he's a good guy."

"See? 'Fangs is a good guy' would never have come out of your mouth four months ago. I mean, you're being so….wait, did you say Fangs is banging Kevin?"

"You didn't know?" she asks, surprised.

"No," Veronica replies slowly, eyes lighting up with the prospect of another couple in their group "I did not know that. You have made me a very happy person, Cheryl."

She shrugs.

"You see what I mean, though, right? And it's not just you, it's her too. Toni has changed so much, too. You've both changed each other and it's for the better. You make each other better, just by being around each other. It's really nice."

"Is this why you called me here?" she asks, exhausted from all the emotional overload of the day "To talk some sense into me?"

"Nah. You're going to do that on your own when you go a week without talking to Toni. It's physically impossible for you. I called you here to speed up the process. Also, because Toni is inside, getting drunk with Sweets and Fangs and she's been crying for you, and while it's all very sweet and cute, you really should go and take care of her. I don't think she can handle her alcohol."

"Oh, she can't," Cheryl informs her "Coke is the strongest she goes up to."

"Calls herself a badass serpent," Veronica mutters, and Cheryl smiles fondly at the thought of Toni "Either way, I'm gonna go inside now. It's up to you whether you want to follow me in."

She gives her one last look, then opens the door, and walks inside.

Cheryl gives it five minutes. Five minutes of thinking over all that Veronica's told her, over all the events of the past few days, and all of that, all of the thinking leads her to thinking about Toni. About her smile and her hair and her stupid pretty face, and her resolve wavers.

She hates it when Veronica is right.

Toni is beautiful.

It isn't something that she's noticing the first time, and it definitely won't be the last, but it's just that, every time she sees her it hits her all over again. Plus, it's been two days of Toni-withdrawal, and the feeling is overwhelming.

Toni is sitting on a stool surrounded by Sweet Pea and Fangs, and the Scooby gang who seem to be singing some sort of strange song, interspersed by a lot of air-guitar-ing from Archie, and Veronica and Betty bopping their heads along. The three Serpents have a bunch of empty shot glasses lying in front of them, and Toni has her face resting glumly on her hand. Cheryl hangs back slightly, staying out of sight, but close enough to overhear.

Not that she needs to. They're all talking loud enough to be overheard on the other side of town.

"I miss her so much, you guys," Toni slurs into her glass of scotch.

"I miss her too," Sweet Pea agrees with her, and when everyone else looks at him in surprise, he shrugs "What? She was like a little mean-machine with the best vocabulary of insults. Plus, her cheerleader friends."

Cheryl smiles.

"No," Toni suddenly speaks up again, insistently "I miss her. Like, so, so much. I miss her stupid gorgeous face, and her stupid small laugh, and her eyes, and her nose, and her lips, and her…her smart words. I miss her fanciness. She was so fancy," she grows quiet "Maybe that's why she rejected me. Because I'm not fancy enough."

And oh, that breaks her heart. Toni sounds more vulnerable than Cheryl has ever seen her, voice tinier than her frame. Witnessing first-hand the damage she has done is the worst feeling she has ever had in her life. She steps forward, desperate to undo the damage, and the all the sober people in the vicinity, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, and Archie turn to stare at her. There is a moment of awkwardness, and then all of them nod at her. Archie even gives her a tentative smile, and she feels a sudden fondness for the boy. She points to Toni, who is now slumped over the bar.

"I'm going to take her home, now?" she asks, even if she doesn't know where home is. All she knows is that she wants to be around her, with her. She wants her to stop hurting.

"Take her upstairs," Fangs tells her, sounding entirely too sober for the amount of whiskey he seems to have drunk "There's a bed there. Her uncle won't…"

She nods at him seriously, then lugs Toni up to the room, all while the girl keeps mumbling about Green Day and how Hannibal totally had the hots for Will Graham and how Cheryl was the hottest girl she had ever seen.

"But she doesn't love me," she then says, sadly, and Cheryl's heart aches.

They finally reach the bed, and she coerces the drunk girl to drink an entire glass of water, and take off her Serpent jacket, and lie down on the bed. She raises her legs onto the bed, takes off her socks, her tiny ankle length socks with little red dots on them, and she is hit with the thought that she wants to do this every day for the rest of her life. Not the having her girlfriend get drunk part, but the tucking her into bed, and the taking care of her part.

Toni stares up at her from the bed with wide, unblinking eyes, and Cheryl, suddenly overcome with craving, leans down, and kisses her eyes. First the right, then the left.

"Sleep, sweetheart," she whispers to her.

"Cheryl."

Toni is still staring at her, and Cheryl leans down again, because she's surprised at how serious she sounds.

"Cheryl," Toni says again.

"What, baby?" she asks, the word slipping out (she doesn't mind. Not really. It suits her)

"Stay, please," the girl mumbles, but she can make out every word "Cheryl, please stay. I know you don't want to, and you don't love me, but please, just for this one night, please, stay, please…"

"Shh," Cheryl tries to calm her down, but Toni keeps asking her to stay, and weak for the girl, she gives in.

"Shh, shh, It's okay, it's okay, Toni, I'm staying."

Toni smiles and it's bright enough to make the past five days better, bright enough to take the permanent agony in her chest away for a moment, and that's when she decides to give up on this entire, staying away from Toni thing. It's not working, and all it's doing is giving them both a lot of pain. She lays down on the bed next to her, half-reclining on the headboard, and Toni immediately curls up into her, rests her head on her chest.

Cheryl has never known this kind of peace in her life. She never wants to let go. She doesn't think she can.

"Tomorrow," she starts "Tomorrow, when you wake up, and you are hungover, and cursing yourself and Sweet Pea and Fangs and the Scooby gang for letting you drink this much, I am going to get you something to eat, and get you an aspirin, and tell you that I love you. I am going to tell you that I love you, that I have loved you for about a month now, and that I am hopefully going to love you and stupid face and hair and eyes for a long time. I am going to be brave for you, because that's what you deserve. You deserve the best, and I promise to be that for you from now on. Now, go to sleep, because I'm pretty sure you're not going to remember this tomorrow."

"I will," comes a mumbled reply, and Cheryl smiles.

"Okay, baby," she says, and closes her eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

_When Archie does things, he never does them halfway. Whether it's the super-dramatic race with Jughead against the Ghoulies, the even more super-dramatic arm-wrestling challenge against Reggie, or the most dramatic fit he threw when One Direction split for good….._

" _Fuck you, Toni," he grumbles, as everyone laughs._

" _It's true, babe," Veronica says, nestled into his side, head resting on his shoulder._

" _It is not true!" he protests in an overly high-pitched voice, and then clears his throat "It's not true. I don't even know what Niall and Harry are up to these days."_

" _Oh, Harry just came out with a new album," Sweet Pea tells him._

" _Really?"_

" _Yeah. It's called 'You're the lamest motherfucker ever, Andrews'. Going platinum now."_

 _The bar erupts with laughter again, and Toni feels a rush of fondness towards everyone. Her family, her two best friends who are currently trying to get everyone to join them in a chorus of What makes you beautiful, Jughead, who hates ninety nine percent of the general population but tries to put up with them anyway, Betty, their personal replacement-mother, and Archie and Veronica, who've melded into their group as seamlessly as, well, shitty, racist and homophobic Republicans in positions of power._

" _Baby, you really have to get over this," Cheryl puts her arm around her shoulder and gives it a squeeze._

" _But they elected Trump!"_

" _I know, baby, I know. Also, was it really that seamless?"_

" _I just meant he won the election easily and people were all like yeah, yeah, make America great again, and shit and none of them seem to realize what an idiot they've elected! I mean."_

" _Trump again?" Betty pipes up, from behind them, where she had gotten up to get a packet of wafers for Jughead._

" _Yes," Cheryl replies, with the even deadpan of someone who has been suffering for a long-long time "Trump again."_

 _Betty grins, and Toni admits defeat "Fine, fine, I'll stop."_

 _Her mind goes back to Veronica and Archie, to hanging out with them in the student's lounge, finally getting Sweet Pea and Fangs to agree to be in the same room as them for five minutes (that soon graduated to hours spending watching football matches and playing video games), to gradually inviting them to the Whyte Wyrm. She thinks of them the first time they walked in, a little intimidated by the staring._

" _And now, we're the lovable-est people in here," Veronica declares, and every person within hearing range rolls their eyes._

" _Because that's a word," Sweet Pea chimes in._

" _Yes, and Sweet Pea is a perfectly logical name," she retorts._

" _You go, babe!' Archie cheers his girlfriend on "We're awesome. Plus…."_

 _He pauses, and Toni thinks, here comes the super dramatic declaration._

" _We could out-drink every one of you here."_

" _You've never had anything harder than strawberry milkshake in your life, buddy."_

" _But my girlfriend has," he says proudly "She's had beer. And wine. And….whiskey too."_

" _Nobody's taking you up on that challenge, dude," Jughead tells him "Especially not after the Epic hangover of November 2017."_

 _Toni, Sweet Pea, and Fangs shudder._

* * *

When Toni wakes up, her head _hurts._ It's the kind of hurt that eats you up from the inside, the kind of hurt that makes you want to scream, the pins and needles that stab the inside of your skull every five seconds. She would scream, except noise could probably destroy her. Her head is playing drums in her ear. Her eardrums are playing drums.

(She would totally write this down if her body could move)

Which, it can't. It feels like her body weighs a billion pounds, and is tied down to the bed she is lying down on. Her head is the heaviest of them all, and her eyelids refuse to open properly. She opens them a little, and her head aches even more when bright light comes streaming in. She groans.

"Ugh," she manages "I am never drinking again."

There are two answering groans, a "Shut your loud face" from Sweets, and another "Amen to that, sister" from what she assumes is Fangs, judging by the weak voice that comes out of the direction of the floor to the right side of the bed.

"Let's just," comes his voice again "Sleep in silence."

"I'm nodding," Sweet Pea tells him "I mean, I'm not really, because my head feels like it just went through a lathe machine. But I'm totally nodding."

Toni closes her eyes again, and tries to sleep

And then, at that very moment, something happens that makes it impossible.

"Rise and shine!" comes the shrill, bright voice of Betty fucking Cooper banging through her head, and echoing there like a bouncing metal cannonball "Get up already! There's a good day ahead of you!"

(Toni swears she can hear the exclamation marks almost as if they were atomic bombs falling over a city)

"Go and die somewhere else, wicked witch of the Wyrm."

"Somebody kill her, please."

And Toni very blearily opens her eyes a fraction and goes "Betty, if you don't shut up right now, there's only death ahead of you."

"I swear sometimes it's like you're all the same person," Betty mutters "But seriously, get up. I brought reinforcements."

* * *

She really needs to start believing in Jughead Jones and Betty Cooper by now.

Every time, every single time that all hope has been lost, they come through with a miracle. This time though, the miracle isn't the discovery of a serial killer or the solving of a murder mystery.

"It's the best hangover-cure in history!" Fangs exclaims, and Jughead and Betty do this weird and creepy thing where they give identical smirks and nod their heads in unison.

But Toni is inclined to forgive them right now, because this disgusting thing she is putting right now in her mouth has brought down the banging in her skull from an eleven to a two; this strange concoction of bananas and cucumbers and what-not is a revelation.

"How are you two not rich yet?" she asks them.

"Ah, family recipe," Jughead replies "Gotta keep it private."

"Anyways," Betty chirps again, pulling on Toni's arm "Get up! There are people waiting for you!"

"Who?"

Betty just gives her an enigmatic smile.

* * *

The thing is, Toni sort of remembers.

Not everything, of course. The evening is a haze of strange combinations of drinks, an alarming number of shots, and an out-of-place memory of someone (Archie? Veronica? Fangs? Maybe all three of them) singing some Dream Theater song, complete with all the complicated guitar riffs. Those are the things she can somewhat remember properly.

But there's also a part of her, a part of her that thinks it was all a dream, which kind of remembers Cheryl carrying her up to the bed, and putting her to sleep. If she thinks hard enough, she can almost hear a soft _I love you_ whispered into her hair, can almost feel the material of the other girl's shirt on her cheek as she rested her head on her chest. If she closes her eyes, she can almost hear her heartbeat.

Then again, it was all probably a dream.

Which is why, as she enters the kitchen of the Whyte Wyrm, the sight of Cheryl at the stove takes her breath away.

It's not just the surprise. It's also the fact that she hadn't really seen her in a while, and there's apparently a counter that she has, the how-beautiful-Cheryl-is counter, that resets every time they say good bye. And the counter keeps building up till the next time she sees her again. This time, the counter's nearly bursting at the seams. She's wearing a simple t-shirt and leggings (which leads her to believe that she hadn't had much time to get ready before coming here), has her hair up in a casual bun, and she still looks like an angel who fell right from heaven into the Whyte Wyrm. And she seems to be…cooking, from the sight of Veronica and Archie who are shoveling what looks to be scrambled eggs into their mouths.

Veronica looks up and sees them "Hey, look who's here", and Cheryl raises her head, looks straight at her and her face breaks out into a shy smile and…..

Toni Topaz is a pink colored puddle.

It's not her proudest moment.

"Hey," the girl speaks, and when did she get so close "I made eggs."

Toni takes the plate handed to her, in a daze, and just looks at her.

"Um, I have to go...water the plants," Veronica says from somewhere beside her.

"Provide the sunlight," Fangs and Sweet Pea join in.

"Get the…" Betty and Jughead chime in, then pause, confused, before Betty finishes "Chlorophyll!"

There's silence in the bar for a minute.

"Dude!" Jughead calls out, exasperated.

"What?" Archie replies, oblivious to the fact that everyone's leaving "These eggs are amazing!"

Cheryl rolls her eyes, but looks mostly amused "That's okay. We'll go outside. Alright?"

Toni doesn't even think about it, just follows her.

* * *

"These are nice," she says, after five minutes, when the eggs have mostly disappeared from her plate "I didn't know you could cook."

"I'm full of surprises," Cheryl grins at her, airily tossing her hair.

Toni grins back, and works to eating the rest of them. She chews slowly, carefully, because it gives her a chance to think. She's oddly nervous right now, her heart beating really fast. Finally finishing the food, she takes a deep breath.

"Has that healed?" she asks, pointing to Cheryl's cheek where the bruise used to be.

(She can almost still see it, that dark, mottled discoloration on the side of her jaw; can almost still feel the rage and helplessness coursing through her body at the sight of it)

"It has," the girl sitting beside her replies.

"You sure?"

"I am," comes the reply.

"Okay," Toni says. She opens her mouth, closes it. Then opens it again "Um, so…."

"I don't suppose you remember last night," Cheryl says before she can continue.

"I kind of do?" she replies, pointedly looking down at her hands, twisting and turning into each other "Or at least, I think I do. Tiny parts, I guess. It's a little blurry, but even if it was a dream, I think it wasn't. I hope it wasn't."

She fiddles with her hands some more, almost obsessively until Cheryl touches them. She takes one hand and draws it away, holding it in her own.

(If she is going to lose her breath this much within the span of fifteen minutes, there's going to be some serious damage to her lungs)

"It wasn't," Cheryl says, quietly.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So you're saying you….." she lets the question hang in the air

"Yeah," Cheryl replies.

"Oh," she says again, and now her cheeks are _burning._

"I didn't mean it, you know," Cheryl starts "That day you came over. I mean, God, it nearly killed me saying all of that to you," she looks desperate, and Toni believes her "You have to believe me. I didn't mean any of it."

"I know, I know," Toni tells her, quickly "It's okay."

"No, it's not. It's just that…Toni, my family is insane. It's….it's a lot of things. My mother hates me, and she cannot stand the thought of me happy. She would do anything in her power to keep me from being happy, and that's not above somehow hurting you. And….I cannot bear the thought of that."

"I'm in a gang," Toni breaks in, trying to make Cheryl smile. It doesn't work. She continues, her voice getting increasingly emotional.

And I'm….really not what you want, okay? I'm mean, and vindictive, and haven't done many good things in my life. I've been horrible to people, and ruined other students' lives and have been known to act bat-crazy on occasions."

"Only on occasions?" she cuts in, raising an eyebrow.

"Toni, I'm being serious."

"And so am I," she tells her, finally looking her in the eyes "I'm not scared of your mother. I can't be driven away by the fact that apparently crazy runs in your family. You are what I want. I don't care what you've been like in your life. It doesn't matter to me. I've done some pretty ruthless stuff too for the Serpents. I really don't care about any of it. I don't even care about this entire…..thing. I mean, the whole me asking you out thing."

"Seriously," she continues "Seriously, Cheryl. I know I freaked out for a while, but that's okay. We can go back to the way we were. It doesn't matter to me that you call me your girlfriend or whatever. I don't care about that. I care that you're safe, and happy, and that you know that you are loved."

Cheryl is looking back at her, eyes wide and serious.

"The only thing is," Toni goes on, blushing a little bit now "Now that, you know, I know that you maybe kinda sorta feel the same way too, I wouldn't mind sometimes holding your hand. Or, like, touching your face. Like, sometimes."

And now Cheryl's blushing too.

"I think that would be okay," she says, clearly fighting a smile.

"Really?" Toni asks her, failing to keep hers at bay too.

"Yes. Maybe," Cheryl pauses a little "Maybe you could also kiss me. Like, sometimes."

She leans her head on Toni's shoulder, and Toni laughs for the first time in what feels like ages.

"Only sometimes," she promises, in a mock-serious tone, and Cheryl joins in too.


	12. Chapter 12

_She stands with Cheryl at the window, a rare moment of peace in the middle of their crazy lives._

 _The group has kind of drifted away, everyone doing their own thing. Jughead is working on his novel, a plate of fries in front of him, Archie is currently locked in an arm-wrestling battle with Sweet Pea as Fangs presides, and Veronica is sneaking looks over Betty's phone. The rest of the Serpents are dancing, playing cards, or getting drunk._

 _Cheryl tilts her head a little to press a kiss to the side of her neck "Baby," she murmurs._

" _Hmm?" Toni asks lazily, tightening her grip on Cheryl's arms that are wrapped around her body._

" _What are you thinking?" the taller girl asks her, kissing her cheek this time "You look sad."_

" _This night," she starts slowly "I don't know why, but it kind of reminds me of the night of the Sisters."_

 _Cheryl's arms convulsively exert a little extra pressure, and Toni can feel the sudden stiffness in her body. She twists around to look her girlfriend in the eyes, leans her forehead against Cheryl's._

" _Hey," she whispers "I'm sorry I brought it up."_

" _No, no," Cheryl shakes her head, tries to smile but falls short just a tiny bit "Don't be sorry. It's just…it's something I have to get over eventually, right? I can't keep crying about it all the time."_

" _That's not…baby, you went through something terrible, It doesn't matter how long it takes, you don't_ _ **have**_ _to get over something just because some time has passed. That's not how it works," Cheryl shakes her head a little, and she bumps her forehead against the taller girl's, wanting, needing to make her feel better "You believe me, right, Cheryl?"_

Toni tells Cheryl to believe her.

Tells her to believe her when she says that she loves her, and wants to be her girlfriend. Tells her to believe her when they're playing couples blindfold battle (it's a thing, don't ask) against Archie and Veronica in the school lawns. Says it when Cheryl is crying and she promises her that she'll make it all better. When Nana Rose falls down the stairs and Cheryl can't stop sobbing that she'll lose her.

"You won't lose her, baby," she says, making sure she's looking right into Cheryl's eyes.

"You can't possibly know that, okay?" Cheryl asks her, hysterically "You can't promise me that…."

"I know, I know," she whispers, gritting her teeth, because no matter how much she wants to, she can't "But I can promise you that I'll be here no matter what. I can promise you that it'll all be okay."

And Cheryl believes her then.

It is exactly this fact that makes her feel a billion times worse when Cheryl goes missing the next day.

She hasn't slept in two days. She knows she probably looks like a mess, scratch that, she definitely knows she looks like a mess; like an eye-dark-circled, hair-tangled, clothes crumpled, and face exhausted from all the running around she has been doing, but she doesn't care. She's talked to every person in the school, who has so much at glanced Cheryl's way sometime in their life, interrogated all the people who live near Thistlehouse, and nobody knows anything. Nobody's seen anything out of the ordinary.

"You know you have to eat sometime," Veronica tells her, plate in hand, resolutely standing in front of her.

"No, I don't," she refuses, stubborn, and sees the girl exchange a glance with Sweet Pea. He hasn't pushed her yet. He shows his worry, his care in other, smaller ways, like making sure she gets to a bed when she crashes for tiny minutes, or helping in her single-minded search for Cheryl.

"If you don't eat, how are you supposed to search for her?" Jughead tries to reason with her.

"I can't," she starts, and her voice cracks, but she refuses to cry. Now's not the time "I can't eat, when I don't know if she is. I don't know if she's eating, I don't know if she's okay, and I don't have the time, I can't, I can't…"

Nobody says anything after that.

"If we're not out in fifteen minutes," Veronica tells Kevin "Call your dad."

It's dark, and it's creepy, and Toni would probably be a little spooked if her mind wasn't on Cheryl. They're all standing in a circle, Archie, Veronica, Sweet Pea, Fangs and Kevin. Betty and Jughead are stuck in the Whyte Wyrm, untangling some mess the Ghoulies had created today morning. Kevin sticks close to Fangs' side, their hands almost brushing together, and Toni would smile, if not for the fact that the girl who usually holds her hands is trapped inside this dilapidated building somewhere.

"Are you sure you don't want us to come inside?" Sweet Pea asks her, his eyes solemn in the moonlight.

She shakes her head "You guys stay outside. We're going to need backup if this thing goes to shit. Just….keep an eye out."

Fangs nods at her.

"Okay, then," she says, with a last look at the guys before she turns "Let's go find my girl."

If Toni stays alive enough to be a thousand years, she would still never be able to forget those five minutes of her life that she spent in a dark theater, looking for Cheryl.

She would never forget the smell of the place, musty, wet, and disgusting. The sheer oppression she could feel, as though the walls were closing in on her every moment she was inside. The way the tunnels seemed to go on and on, splitting off into a million different directions. How dark, and sad, and terrible the place seemed.

But most of what she wouldn't be able to forget is Cheryl. Cheryl, standing up looking utterly confused at seeing her there. Cheryl, who had tears on her face, and a bruise around her eyes. Cheryl, who looked at her like she was her superhero, like she'd somehow known Toni would find her.

(And Toni both hates herself at that moment, and thinks _Of course I'd find you, Bombshell, there isn't a place on earth that could keep me away from you_ )

Cheryl takes one step forward, two, slowly, then starts running. They collide, and Toni steadies her as she runs into her (she feels her thin bones beneath her arms, and hates this place with a vehemence that she has never felt in her life, ever), grabs her and pulls her into her arms.

And God, it feels so…..pure is the word for it, she supposes. It feels pure, and divine, and Toni feels relief from the pain she hadn't even realized had settled into her bones over the past few days, releases a long breath, and breathes Cheryl in. The girl pulls back to look at her, her eyes wide as though she still can't believe this is real, and Toni leans in to kiss her.

Archie drives them back. Veronica is sitting next to him, and Sweet Pea is sitting in the backseat with Cheryl and her. Fangs left on his bike with Kevin sitting behind him, a few minutes ago, and she guesses he won't be back before the morning. Cheryl is sitting quietly next to her, her head nestled into Toni's shoulder, with their hands tightly locked together.

"Baby," she turns to whisper "You okay?"

Cheryl nods a little, and while Toni does not believe her in the slightest, she kisses her forehead, and grips her hand even tighter, as they drive back.

Archie smiles at them as they get off, and Cheryl nods back at him, her expression grateful. Veronica touches her hand briefly, and Toni wonders how she got so lucky to have the greatest friends anyone could ever ask for.

"Guys," she starts "Thank you for…."

"Oh fuck off," Sweet Pea booms from the backseat, poking his massive head out "Don't be an asshole."

Yeah, she's pretty lucky.

That night Toni watches Cheryl break in front of her, watches her cry and sob, and try to tear at her own skin, muttering that she feels dirty. She sees her rock back and forth, teeth biting into her own lips to try and stifle the noise. Hears her cry out for Toni not to leave her when she tries getting up to get her some water. She sees Cheryl at her weakest, at her most vulnerable.

She sees Cheryl bare, and she holds her. She holds her through her tears, kisses them away when she can't breathe, wraps her up in her arms, and promises her she'll never let her go. Promises her that she would keep her safe, and that she won't let anything happen to her, ever.

"I'm sorry I'm a mess," Cheryl whispers through her tears, and Toni thinks _I love you I love you I love you_ , thinks _I'm never going to let you out of my sight,_ thinks _I'm sorry I'm not better._

This is what she says instead "That's okay. We can be a mess together."


End file.
